1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to on-line reference materials, and, in particular, to a technique for dynamically creating on-line, comprehensive reference materials.
2. Description of Related Art
Dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference materials contain comprehensive information about a particular branch of knowledge. For example, dictionaries contain information about words, including information about their form, pronunciations, functions, and meanings. Encyclopedias contain information about a particular subject, including details about the history of a topic or subject.
Generally, these reference materials are published works that are updated annually, semi-annually, or within a defined period of time. Publishers, editors, and/or authors (collectively referred to as xe2x80x9cauthorsxe2x80x9d) typically control the content of the initial reference material and the content of the subsequent versions of the reference material.
By contrast, readers of the reference materials seldom control either the content of the initial reference material or the content of the subsequent versions. There have been situations, however, in which readers submit their personal views about information contained in a reference material to the authors. When the authors review and analyze the accuracy of the submitted information, they determine whether to update subsequent versions of the reference materials. Of course, the authors are under no obligation to even consider the views of the reader, much less to update a subsequent version based on a readers submission. Hence, the authors could conceivably exclude the views of all readers from the reference materials. Such behavior can create a plethora of reference books that are limited in scope and breadth because they only contain the views of a handful of peoplexe2x80x94the authors.
In this age of information technology, an abundance of these reference materials are located on the Internet. The Internet is a type of global computer network that offers a vast amount of information to a multitude of diverse computer users. Via its networks, the Internet enables many users from different geographical locations to access information stored in data sources (e.g., databases) that are located around the world. The World Wide Web (WWW or the web) is the fastest growing part of the Internet. The WWW is a system of Internet servers that support specifically formatted documents (e.g., HTML documents). These documents include, but are not limited to, electronic versions of reference materials.
There are many electronic versions of reference materials, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, and almanacs. These reference materials are made up of data files. The data files may be text files or multimedia files. Exemplary reference materials are the American Heritage Talking Dictionary, Britannica Online, and the Baseball Almanac. Like the reference materials discussed above, these electronic versions are updated infrequently, and the updates are controlled by the authors, and not by the computer users.
A number of patents have issued for various electronic reference materials. Most of these patents are related to retrieving words and information about words from an electronic dictionary (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,649,221, 5,745,776, 5,642,522, and 5,297,038). The content of these electronic dictionaries are also controlled by the authors, and not the computer user.
One patent entitled xe2x80x9cInternet-based Spelling Checker Dictionary System With Automatic Updating,xe2x80x9d U.S. Pat. No. 5,875,443 (""443 patent), discloses a technique that allows a computer user to submit correctly and incorrectly spelled words to the authors of the spelling dictionary. The authors determine whether the word is an approved word. All approved words are added to the spelling dictionary, and the updated spelling dictionary in periodically distributed to users.
The technique disclosed in the ""443 Patent tends to expand the scope and breadth of the spelling dictionary because the authors are willing to update the dictionary based on input from users. Therefore, unlike the handful of authors who tended to control the content of traditional reference materials, the ""443 patent discloses a collaborative effort between computer users and authors of the spelling dictionary. Yet, the technique disclosed in the ""443 patent has two major limitations.
First, the technique is narrowly directed to providing correctly spelled words. For users that wish to obtain a broad spectrum of information, the spell checker dictionary is worthless. The spell checker dictionary lacks word definitions and topic and subject descriptions. Further, conventional spelling dictionaries, like the one disclosed in the ""443 patent, lack multimedia files. Instead, they are frequently composed of text files that contain nothing more than the correct (or incorrect) spelling of a word.
Second, the ""443 patent involves the periodical distribution of updated spelling dictionaries. Users are required to wait for an unspecified length of time before receiving updates. As a result, the users are virtually forced to use outdated spelling information until the next distribution cycle.
Thus, what is needed is a technique for dynamically updating on-line, comprehensive reference material.
To overcome the limitations in the prior art described above, and to overcome other limitations that will become apparent upon reading and understanding the present specification, the present invention discloses a method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for creating on-line, comprehensive reference materials.
In accordance with the present invention. A comprehensive reference material is dynamically updated by using an input received from one or more users.
The present invention has utility for dynamically updating an online, comprehensive reference material based on user input.